


An Analysis of Jaime's Dream in ASOS

by janie_tangerine



Series: in which I stash meta/essays/everything that's not fanfic [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Book 3: A Storm of Swords, Character Analysis, Dream interpretation, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Essays, F/M, Gen, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Meta, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Weirwood(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: In which I meta-ed and spent a fair amount of words dissecting from beginning to end Jaime's dream in ASOS based on a question asking why did people think he would live based on it.





	An Analysis of Jaime's Dream in ASOS

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on tumblr asked me recently _how is the weirwood dream proof jaime will live?_ and I answered [here](https://janiedean.tumblr.com/post/185495776473/how-is-the-weirwood-dream-proof-jaime-will-live) \- it got a pretty nice response and I was pretty proud of it so I figured I'd polish it and post it here as well. 
> 
> Obviously, the quotes provided are all GRRM's from ASOS, I c/p-ed the entire thing to go about it with actual text in front of me but of course I just own the speculation.
> 
> Also: this is tagged with both ships because both are included in the dream and it's about Jaime's psyche/subconscious where both of them are present. Feel free to scroll if it's not what you're interested in reading. :)

First premise: I have good reasons to think that Jaime’s weirwood dream is a perfect depiction/summary of _most_ of the issues he has.

Second premise: it’s a weirwood dream so it’s  _prophetic_.

Third premise: I’m going off [basic dream interpretation symbolism](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Interpretation_of_Dreams&t=YTA5N2I2OGUyYzIwN2FkMWRlZTczY2E5MTMzZjFiZDU1Y2QwNTY3YywzSnNxOFlFeQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AdgHLSIMGwdyIxk-MZARAFA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fjaniedean.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F185495776473%2Fhow-is-the-weirwood-dream-proof-jaime-will-live&m=1) which grrm  _definitely_  knows a thing or two about dream interpretation  _and_  the likes, and the basis is that your dreams are  ** _a wish fulfillment_  that your subconscious is trying to send you or warnings that your subconscious is trying to send you but that you might censor because you don’t want to face what it is that your subconscious is really telling you**, which in this case we have in spades.  _So_ , with that stated and going at it from beginning to end. 

 

> He closed his eyes, and hoped to dream of Cersei. The fever dreams were all so vivid …

 

Point one: he  _hopes to dream of Cersei._ ie the person he loves/he thinks is his other half/soulmate/that he thought of while imprisoned to find himself a motivation to go on/that he associates with love-comfort-being understood because she’s his supposed half and that’s how it goes. Fair enough, he’s had a pretty bad time lately, right? then the dream starts.

 

> Naked and alone he stood, surrounded by enemies, with stone walls all around him pressing close. The Rock, he knew. He could feel the immense weight of it above his head. He was home. He was home and whole.

 

Now, what did we say before about conflicting messages? The basic message here is DANGER DANGER DANGER because he’s  _naked_  and  _alone_  and surrounded by enemies and  _walls pressing close_  which gives a pretty claustrophobic feeling….. but he thinks he’s  _home_. With an IMMENSE WEIGHT ABOVE HIS HEAD. spoilers: his home (Casterly)  _weights immensely on him_  (with his name attached to it), but he can’t realize that it’s a negative thing because that just doesn’t register - he knows that it  _should_  be a good thing so he processes it as such… while his subconscious is screaming  _danger_  at him. Also surrounded by enemies = pretty much all his life, right? Then:

 

> He held his right hand up and flexed his fingers to feel the strength in them. It felt as good as sex. As good as swordplay. Four fingers and a thumb. He had dreamed that he was maimed, but it wasn’t so. Relief made him dizzy. My hand, my good hand. Nothing could hurt him so long as he was whole.   
> 

 

There are more red flags here, as in:  _he has the right hand_. the one he lost before and that he hates to think he’s lost. now, what does he associate it with?  _sex and swordplay_. also: _he had dreamed he was maimed_. And _nothing could hurt him as long as he was whole_. So: his right hand and his swordplay skills are  _what makes sure he doesn’t get hurt_ ,  **which is fairly obvious given that Jaime’s basic problem solving skill when it comes to anything is trying to kill it**  and he doesn’t have a flight instinct. Also: swordplay = sex, and sex = Cersei, so being whole = he has the right hand = he has his swordplay skills = he has Cersei = he has his love and he can defend himself = nothing can hurt him. It’s  _all on the same level_.

Except that he doesn’t have the hand anymore, not really. But let’s go on. 

 

> Around him stood a dozen tall dark figures in cowled robes that hid their faces. In their hands were spears. “Who are you?” he demanded of them. “What business do you have in Casterly Rock? They gave no answer, only prodded him with the points of their spears. He had no choice but to descend. Down a twisting passageway he went, narrow steps carved from the living rock, down and down. I must go up, he told himself. Up, not down. Why am I going down? Below the earth his doom awaited, he knew with the certainty of dream; something dark and terrible lurked there, something that wanted him. Jaime tried to halt, but their spears prodded him on. If only I had my sword, nothing could harm me.

 

Now, here we’re in downright creepy territory. he’s just said that nothing can hurt him….  _but then he thinks if only I had a sword, nothing could harm me_ , so it’s not just his right hand now. He needs the sword.  ** _he doesn’t have one yet_** _._ Keep that in mind because that’s half of the point. He’s surrounded by dark figures he can’t place who  _force him to go down instead of up_  even if he thinks he should go  _up_ , and he knows that  _his doom awaited below_ , so he knows he’s going straight where something  **dangerous, dark and terrible**  lurks there. Mind the specific word choice -  _dangerous,_ ** _dark_** _and terrible_. so even if he thinks he’s whole and safe, he  _knows_  deep down that’s not a thing and that he’s being  _forced_  to face something that  _wants him_  and that’s not a good thing either. Which is……  _the same kind of split he shows when he thinks that he’s Cersei but at the same time behaves the opposite way and knows that she’d hate to see him looking differently from her_. Also:  **his doom awaited** , which means that he’s sure he’s going to die or that it’ll be his end. And he’s not  _really processing it_ , because he still thinks that as long as he has the right hand and a sword he’d be fine. except that no, that’s not the kind of thing you solve by killing it.

 

> “The steps ended abruptly on echoing darkness. Jaime had the sense of vast space before him. He jerked to a halt, teetering on the edge of nothingness. A spearpoint jabbed at the small of the back, shoving him into the abyss. He shouted, but the fall was short. He landed on his hands and knees, upon soft sand and shallow water. There were watery caverns deep below Casterly Rock, but this one was strange to him. “What place is this?”   
> 
> 
> “Your place.” The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of all the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who’d lived at the dawn of days. But most of all it was his father’s voice, and beside Lord Tywin stood his sister, pale and beautiful, a torch burning in her hand. Joffrey was there as well, the son they’d made together, and behind them a dozen more dark shapes with golden hair.   
> 

 

And here we go.

One: the dark cloaks and figures are  _the other Lannisters before him_ , who at this point we can deduce symbolize his name/legacy that he feels he hasn’t lived up to and who are basically bringing him down to a trial as they  _shove him into the abyss._  He ends up some place  _he doesn’t know_  or  _remember_ ,  **and let’s remember that Jaime’s preferred coping method for trauma is** _dissociating_ **, so this is most likely a hint to the fact that he can’t recognize a place that** _his own subconscious is telling him is HIS place_ , as in….. where his trauma/issues are rooted.

And who is in this  **dark, dangerous, terrible place where** _his doom awaits_?

Tywin,  _Cersei_  and Joffrey. and more Lannisters, but  _those_  three are the ones that are named.

Also,  **Cersei has a burning torch in her hand**.

So… according to Jaime’s subconscious, his father,  _Cersei_  and Joffrey are  _in the dark, dangerous and terrible place where his doom awaits_.

Sounds to me like said subconscious is  _entirely aware_  that Tywin was a shit to him, that Cersei never gave a fuck about him and that he regrets having had Joffrey with her because Joffrey is who he is, but let’s go on.

 

> “Sister, why has Father brought us here?”   
>  “Us? This is your place, Brother. This is your darkness.” Her torch was the only light in the cavern. Her torch was the only light in the world. She turned to go.   
>  “Stay with me,” Jaime pleaded. “Don’t leave me here alone.” But they were leaving. “Don’t leave me in the dark!” Something terrible lived down here. “Give me a sword, at least.”   
>  “I gave you a sword,” Lord Tywin said.   
>  It was at his feet. Jaime groped under the water until his hand closed upon the hilt. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have a sword.

 

This is even more damning. first thing, he asks Cersei  _why did Tywin bring them there_ , so he’s already putting blame on him rather than assuming that Cersei has a hand in anything that might hurt him…. but Cersei replies that  _this is his place and his darkness_ , while holding  **the only light in the cavern/the world**. So, if it’s  _his_  darkness and  _his_  place, if she’s holding that light, then we can surmise that the light is  _Jaime himself_. And what does Cersei do?

She turns and leaves him there.

Then he  _pleads_  to her to stay with him, and  _she doesn’t_ (mind that later the text says that he  _pleaded_  with Rhaegar to have someone else guard Aerys with him and he was told no) and  _he doesn’t want to be left alone in the dark_ , and he still doesn’t realize that the terrible thing that lives down there is in fact  _all three of them_ , and at the end he asks for the sword…… which is the only thing that can help him be safe as we established before, right?

So: Tywin gives him the sword, which is obviously foreshadowing Tywin giving him Oathkeeper later, so that's the first prophetic thing that happens. And again, _nothing can hurt me as long as I have a sword_. At this point he has the sword and Cersei has the light in her hands, and we established that  _he_  is that light, right?

 

> As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand’s breath from the hilt. The fire took on the color of the steel itself so it burned with a silvery-blue light, and the gloom pulled back. Crouching, listening, Jaime moved in a circle, ready for anything that might come out of the darkness. The water flowed into his boots, ankle deep and bitterly cold. Beware the water, he told himself. There may be creatures living in it, hidden deeps …   
>  From behind came a great splash. Jaime whirled toward the sound … but the faint light revealed only Brienne of Tarth, her hands bound in heavy chains. “I swore to keep you safe,” the wench said stubbornly. “I swore an oath.” Naked, she raised her hands to Jaime. “Ser. Please. If you would be so good.”

 

First thing that happens: the moment he takes up the sword,  _the sword becomes alight_ , so the light that Cersei has in her hands is  _currently in his own as well_. if he is the light, we can  _definitely_  deduce the message that if before he thought he was her and she was his half  _completely_ , now he’s starting to take it back from her even if Cersei still has some with her, which means he’s starting to detach himself from her. Also, the moment he does it,  _the gloom pulls back_. As in: the moment he starts to  _reclaim himself from Cersei_ , the feeling of doom and gloom momentarily goes away, but he’s still on guard and he’s not really doing too well - there’s the imagery of his feet being deep in cold water and he’s expecting anything to reach up and drag him down. We can add that water is a  _primal_  element and has a lot of symbolism attached to it first of all rebirth and cleansing, but in this case it’s not exactly  _that_  - usually deep water or a large quantity of it means  _your emotions_  and if they’re turbulent or cold or  _not_  cleansing it’s there to symbolize your emotional turmoil and if you feel lost in it it means you can’t control your emotions. _Except_  that then there’s a  _splash_  from behind him as in someone erupting from nowhere and who shows up?

_Brienne_. First he  _whirls_  towards her but then goes like ‘oh it’s only her’ so she’s not perceived as a  _danger_ , and… she has  _chains_  around her wrists, as in, she’s forbidden from doing anything that she wants, same as she’s been all her life and Jaime subconsciously knows that. And what does she tell him instead of ‘well I gave you a sword, your business’ or ‘this is your darkness, not mine’?

_I swore to keep you safe,_ ** _ser_** _,_ and then she’s  _naked_  (as in the bath at Harrenhal) as in at her most vulnerable  _same as him_ , and she’s pleading him to  _let her keep him safe_.

Now, we already know (he told Qyburn that she’s his protector) that by this point Jaime associates her with being safe/protected regardless of how much he might not process it in depth, but she did keep him safe as much as she could, she kept him alive while they were prisoners, she  _materially_  cleaned him up/made sure he’d eat as much as she could when they were prisoners and they’ve shared intimate confessions in the bath at the end of which she caught him/washed him/dressed him, and wow, who is that shows up when he feels alone,  _naked_ , his family is deserting him and danger is looming on him?

Right, Brienne. Who can’t do anything  _until he does something about it, though_. And what happens?

 

> The steel links parted like silk. “A sword,” Brienne begged, and there it was, scabbard, belt, and all. She buckled it around her thick waist. The light was so dim that Jaime could scarcely see her, though they stood a scant few feet apart. In this light she could almost be a beauty, he thought. In this light she could almost be a knight. Brienne’s sword took flame as well, burning silvery blue. The darkness retreated a little more.   
>  “The flames will burn so long as you live,” he heard Cersei call. “When they die, so must you.”   
>  “Sister!” he shouted. “Stay with me. Stay!” There was no reply but the soft sound of retreating footsteps.

 

So: she asks him to let her keep his oath. The moment she does, her chains fall. then she begs for a sword, and  _in his own subconscious, he conjures one for her from nothing_  and he gives it to her (same as he’ll give her Oathkeeper later) and the moment she puts it around her waist and takes it out,  _he thinks that_ **she could almost be a beauty/a knight** , and let’s remember he’s dreaming that both of them are naked. And what happens the moment he gives her the sword?

_The sword takes flame_. So  _both_  their swords are burning.

What were we saying about what the light stands for here? Right, that it’s  _himself_. And what happens? _The darkness retreats some more_. As in:  _he gave Brienne a part of himself_  or better yet,  _his subconscious picked her as the person he trusts with that part of himself_.

Now: Cersei is still there but he hears her, he doesn’t see her. She tells her that ‘the flames will burn as long as you live’ and so  _he must die_  when they disappear’, and he still shouts at her to  _stay with him_ , but she doesn’t and leaves.

Now, at this point you could say ‘so we’re talking about his own life’, but let’s remember that this is symbolizing  _Jaime’s worst fears_  (being abandoned by his family) while at the same time his own subconscious has placed those three plus his legacy in  _what damns him_  and  _what harms him_  and defined them as *his darkness* that he should try to conquer. But that’s not all there is to it so let’s go ahead.

 

> Brienne moved her longsword back and forth, watching the silvery flames shift and shimmer. Beneath her feet, a reflection of the burning blade shone on the surface of the flat black water. She was as tall and strong as he remembered, yet it seemed to Jaime that she had more of a woman’s shape now.   
>  “Do they keep a bear down here?” Brienne was moving, slow and wary, sword to hand; step, turn, and listen. Each step made a little splash. “A cave lion? Direwolves? Some bear? Tell me, Jaime. What lives here? What lives in the darkness?”   
>  “Doom.” No bear, he knew. No lion. “Only doom.”

 

This dream Brienne, other than having  _more of a woman’s shape_  to her, which is already telling concerning what Jaime thinks of her subconsciously, other than asking him if they keep a bear there (second prophecy, since it's obviously about the bear pit) asks if there are direwolves (the Starks) and cave lions (the Lannisters), and calls him  _Jaime_ , not _ser_ Jaime or Kingslayer, and again, that’s  _Jaime’s head_ , so he wants her to call him like that. Also, he insists that it’s not bears or lions, but just  _doom_. and we haven’t seen all of that yet.

 

> In the cool silvery-blue light of the swords, the big wench looked pale and fierce. “I mislike this place.”   
>  “I’m not fond of it myself.” Their blades made a little island of light, but all around them stretched a sea of darkness, unending. “My feet are wet.”   
>  “We could go back the way they brought us. If you climbed on my shoulders you’d have no trouble reaching that tunnel mouth.”   
>  Then I could follow Cersei. He could feel himself growing hard at the thought, and turned away so Brienne would not see.   
>  “Listen.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and he trembled at the sudden touch. She’s warm. “Something comes.” Brienne lifted her sword to point off to his left. “There.”

 

She looks pale and  _fierce_ , more positive attributes thrown at her. And she says  _she mislikes the place_  and he says he doesn’t like it either - well, it’s  _his head_ , so that's obviously also his self-loathing. Their swords are  _both_  alight, so she’s helping him keep the place not dark.  _His feet are wet_ , and remember what we said before about the water. Brienne says that he can climb on her to get out, and he thinks, sure so I can see Cersei,  _gets hard and_ **doesn’t want Brienne to see it** … so he doesn’t disappoint her? And why? She knows in the real world and she’s in his dream, she won’t judge him for it……. but  _he still hides it from her_  as if he’s ashamed of it. A moment later she touches him and she’s  _warm_  same as in the Harrenhal baths. And  _she_  warns him that someone’s coming. She’s pretty much keeping him safe as she had sworn. Again, this is all  _Jaime’s subconscious_. That’s how he sees her at this point.

 

> “He peered into the gloom until he saw it too. Something was moving through the darkness, he could not quite make it out …   
>  “A man on a horse. No, two. Two riders, side by side.”   
>  “Down here, beneath the Rock?” It made no sense. Yet there came two riders on pale horses, men and mounts both armored. The destriers emerged from the blackness at a slow walk. They make no sound, Jaime realized. No splashing, no clink of mail nor clop of hoof. He remembered Eddard Stark, riding the length of Aerys’s throne room wrapped in silence. Only his eyes had spoken; a lord’s eyes, cold and grey and full of judgment.   
>  “Is it you, Stark?” Jaime called. “Come ahead. I never feared you living, I do not fear you dead.”Brienne touched his arm. “There are more.”

 

He thinks it’s Ned coming, and he goes like I didn’t fear you either living or dead…… but didn’t he really, if  _his judgment hurt him so much that he thinks that’s what he’ll find in the dark, dangerous, terrible place that’s *his darkness*?_  Doubtful, Jaime, doubtful. Notice how Brienne is still touching him and going around him and being supportive. Anyway, he’s expecting Ned.

He doesn’t get _Ned_.

 

> He saw them too. They were armored all in snow, it seemed to him, and ribbons of mist swirled back from their shoulders. The visors of their helms were closed, but Jaime Lannister did not need to look upon their faces to know them.   
>  Five had been his brothers. Oswell Whent and Jon Darry. Lewyn Martell, a prince of Dorne. The White Bull, Gerold Hightower. Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning. And beside them, crowned in mist and grief with his long hair streaming behind him, rode Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and rightful heir to the Iron Throne.   
>  “You don’t frighten me,” he called, turning as they split to either side of him. He did not know which way to face. “I will fight you one by one or all together. But who is there for the wench to duel? She gets cross when you leave her out.”   
>  “I swore an oath to keep him safe,” she said to Rhaegar’s shade. “I swore a holy oath.”   
>  “We all swore oaths,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, so sadly.

 

And here we have the jackpot: his doom, along with Tywin/Cersei/Joffrey who  _left him instead of supporting him through it_ , is Rhaegar and his Kingsguard.

_That because_ **Jaime feels still guilty about it** , even if he knows he did the right thing and he couldn’t have done much else…. except that his subconscious doesn’t really agree on that. So he’s facing them/his doom and who is with him?

Brienne. What does Brienne have? _A burning sword that’s a part of him that he gave freely to her_. What does Jaime have?  _a burning sword that’s the part of him that he reclaimed directly from Cersei_.

So: he tells them they don’t frighten him, so he sees them as  _enemies_ , all of them. And  _he asks them to duel Brienne too_ , because he knows she would… as she swore an oath to keep him safe, as she says for the third time or so later. lThe fact that Jaime is so fixated on Brienne’s oath to  ** _keep him safe_** _when the entire dream started with him thinking that if he had the right hand then he didn’t need anyone to do it for him_  speaks volumes about how he sees her subconsciously, because most likely no one actually ever swore to keep  _him_  safe from anything ( _he_  is the one who keeps people safe/his loved ones safe or that he should do/that he feels guilty for not doing)… except that  _she_  did, and she keeps on telling that specific oath... to every single person that his subconscious sees as dangerous/that he might need to be protected from.

I mean, he’s being fairly transparent here, but let’s go on to the crux of it.

 

> “The shades dismounted from their ghostly horses. When they drew their longswords, it made not a sound.  **“He was going to burn the city,” Jaime said. “To leave Robert only ashes.** ”   
>  “He was your king,” said Darry.   
>  “ _You swore to keep him safe_ ,” said Whent.   
>  “And the children, them as well,” said Prince Lewyn.   
>  Prince Rhaegar burned with a  _cold_  light, now white, now red, now dark. “ **I left my wife and children in your hands**.”   
>  “ **I never thought he’d hurt them**.”  ** _Jaime’s sword was burning less brightly now_**. “I was with the king …”   
>  **_“Killing the king,” said Ser Arthur._ ** ****__  
>  **_“Cutting his throat,” said Prince Lewyn._ **   
>  **_“The king you had sworn to die for,”_**  said the White Bull.   
>  _The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out_ , and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. ** _Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in._**   
>  “No,” he said, “no, no, no. Nooooooooo!”

 

Now: the moment Jaime justifies himself for Aerys, both Rhaegar and his KG brothers start vomiting on him  _every single thing he has struggled with for his entire life since the kingslaying and that he couldn’t have helped_. Now, we as readers know that Jaime was right, that Aerys was dangerous and that he would have never let elia and the children die if he had had a clue, and we also know that it was unfair of them all to leave the seventeen year-old in charge of the entire castle/of the king/of Elia and the children.  _But_  Jaime’s subconscious which has been struggling with it, his issues with his vows and so on for his entire life doesn’t know that, and what happens? the light in  _his_  sword (the one that  _he got from Cersei in the passing of the torch_ )  **starts going dim every time they bring up what turned him into _the Kingslayer_**. It goes dim when Rhaegar accuses him of letting Elia and the children die and the flames die when his *commander* reminds him  _he should have died for Aerys_ , and wait, why should he have died for Aerys? Because he joined the KG. why did he join it? _Also because Cersei convinced him to_. What light dies completely?  _The one in *his* sword that he had been given by Cersei…._ **but not the light in Brienne’s sword which is the light *he* gave to her freely**.

And then he wakes up and what does he do? Goes back to Harrenhal  _to go get Brienne_.

Now: that dream is symbolism for a lot of things including a metaphorical death... for Jaime as  _the Kingslayer_ /for Jaime’s  _issues_ /for Jaime’s tendency to  _not deal with his own trauma_ , not for *himself*, because Brienne’s sword is still burning in his darkness and that’s  _his_  light as well. It wasn’t just the one that went out.

What happened metaphorically is that Cersei rejected him wholly and washed her hands off him as  _she will do later_ , he reclaimed himself back Kingslayer and all, then he gave Brienne  _some of_   _the light Cersei had_  which still stands for  _himself_  and the one he had in his arms that died died when he confronted  _his kingslaying/his trauma connected to his experience in the Kingsguard that he always refused to deal with_.

What he did metaphorically is that he took himself back from Cersei, gave Brienne the best part of him  _to keep safe_  and suffered while he had to deal with the fact that he never really got over Aerys as he wishes he had.

But that means that  _when he gets over it fully_ (and he’s on the good road for it as since he wakes up from the dream other than saving Brienne he vows to try to be the person he wanted to be, owns up to his shit, starts detaching himself from Cersei and  _deals_  with his problems, and if you compare his ASOS povs with his ADWD ones you can see that his emotional maturity [which was about stuck at late teens when his POVs start] has taken a  _huge_  damned leap forward) then he’ll have killed/shed  _his kingslayer persona_  and probably his Kingsguard duties,  _not that he’s going to die_.

Because the light in Brienne’s sword never went out and  _that was *his* light, too_ , and he gave it to her subconsciously in a  _prophetic dream_  in which he left behind all the toxic parts of his family/they left him behind as well and had to be without them (mind that neither Tyrion nor Tommen/Myrcella appear in the dream at all) and faced his *darkness* and doom with Brienne at his side  _and she kept the sword with his light burning_.

Which means he’s definitely going to live.

Or at least, he’s going to outlive Cersei  _and_  die on his own damned terms, but I really think that the dream is about him confronting his trauma  _and_  the kingslayer persona he never really wanted, not about his death. Because it says nowhere _he_ will die, never mind that the person who says is Cersei and his entire storyline is about him distancing himself from her and realizing that she’s completely wrong about the two of them and that he doesn’t want the same things as she and viceversa.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [An Analysis of Jaime's Dream in ASOS [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908845) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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